Study: More kids hit puberty early

Last week the British Daily Mail ran a story about a girl who started puberty at age 7.

Shutterstock/Belinda Pretorius

Acne starts at all different ages.

When most girls are still playing with dolls, Tara Lamey was struggling with the hair suddenly growing in strange places on her body.

“I was growing hair under my armpits,” she told the Mail. “And I was horrified. At that age, barely into primary school, I’d had no lessons about puberty and had no idea what was happening to my body. But I knew it didn’t feel right. I remember getting changed for swimming lessons and feeling mortified. I longed to fit in and be hairless like all of my friends.”

This might sound like a freak situation but actually it’s becoming more common.

A new Danish study revealed that “growing numbers of girls are reaching puberty before the age of 10,” according to London’s Sunday Times.

Researchers looked at “breast development in a sample of 1,000 girls and found that they started at an average age of 9 years and 10 months — an entire year earlier than when a similar cohort was examined in 1991.”

The Times reports:

The research was carried out in Denmark in 2006, the latest year for which figures were available, but experts believe the trend applies to Britain and other parts of Europe. Data from America also point to the earlier onset of puberty.

Scientists warn that such young girls are ill-equipped to cope with sexual development when they are still at primary school.

“We were very surprised that there had been such a change in a period of just 15 years,” said Anders Juul, head of the Department of Growth and Reproduction at the University hospital in Copenhagen, a world leader in the study of hormones and growth.

“If girls mature early, they run into teenage problems at an early age and they’re more prone to diseases later on. We should be worried about this regardless of what we think the underlying reasons might be. It’s a clear sign that something is affecting our children, whether it’s junk food, environmental chemicals or lack of physical activity.”

“We were very surprised that there had been such a change in a period of just 15 years,” Anders Juul, head of the Department of Growth and Reproduction at the University hospital in Copenhagen, told The Sunday Times of London.

Experts don’t have a definite answer to this question but dozens of studies are beginning to reveal some clues. Obesity, diet, social factors, and exposure to chemicals are all thought to be contributing factors according to the book Our Stolen Future.

Studies have shown early puberty in obese women and delayed puberty in thin ballet dancers. One study found that girls growing up in stressed families reach puberty earlier. And a number of toxins, particularly bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates, are thought to speed up puberty.

Danish researchers are now analyzing blood and urine samples from girls in the study to see if there’s a direct link between early sexual maturation and BPA.

At what age did you start going through puberty? When did you start to notice changes in your kids? Do you have a child who started puberty before age 10?